Huzzah! spring is finally here. Flowers are blossoming, the great thaw has started and pale knees squint out from under bright skirts still ceased from winter packing...

Its been a rather wonderful winter for us at Parlour tricks, after the roaring success of our St. Martins day feast, and a wonderful Christmas party we threw for the Brooklyn Brothers agency - we decided to cash in our chips and head off to the Indian sub continent for a prolonged sojourn, trotting around the place, tasting foods of the most delicious persuasions on every street corner, soaking up the perfumes and spices of the markets and even sampling the Indian 'champagne'. (actually, not a bad drop!). And with plenty of time to think and conjure on long train journeys, we came back with more than just stuffed camels and incense......

Out of a brimming hatful of ideas and hair brained schemes we pulled out three that we're really keen to share with you...

The 1st of these, is just a few weeks away on Friday the 20th of April (a very auspicious day indeed!). We'll be celebrating 'Spring Forth!' our springtime feast, which also coincides with the feast day of Libertas - yes, the goddess of freedom and liberty. My good friend Suman owns a delightful florist 'slash' cafe in Hackney. We'd been toying with the idea of doing a dinner there for ages and when we finally decided to, he just grinned and said 'its all yours!' What a nice chap. So, expect food, drink and music themed around Spring, flowers and the English countryside. Start the evening with a flower themed cocktail and canapes, then sit amongst the flowers for a delicious three course meal, prepared with the finest wild and fresh British ingredients, perfectly executed by Phil and our michelin star trained chef Russ and looked after by Olive, Katy and the gang, washed down with a mouth watering list of bold, beautiful bio dynamic wines. After this we'll take you across the road into the candle lit warehouse where you can enjoy cocktails and punch, composed especially for the occasion, local beers and bubbles whilst you laugh, dance and carrousel to live music into the wee hours. It promises to be secret dining as it should be - intimate, exquisite and FUN! Tickets will be really limited for this one, with every diner allowed to invite friends for the after party.

As SPRING FORTH! looms ever closer, hovering just on the horizon are two more brilliant events to get those mouths watering...

What, you may ask, would be the point of spending all that time in India without compiling feverishly scrawled notebooks full of dishes eaten, recipes half understood and a great party in the making? Well there wouldn't have been, so, Mahatmas and Sahibs, we present to you our 'Indian Summer Feast'. Conjuring up the essence of India with ideas that we picked up on our travels, tastes and flavours and a bit of psychedelia for the after party! We'll keep you updated but we're hoping July/August sometime for this one.

But before we get there, Olive decided on a party themed around indulging in one of our guiltiest food pleasures - The Midnight Feast. For a while in the cold mountains of Nepal we got into the habit of taking snacks a plenty to bed with us and then at some point during the night, waking up just enough to pass them back and forth before contentedly falling back into our slumber. How sweet! Well, we thought why not celebrate the midnight feast by asking our friends what they enjoy most in the middle of the night (food that is....) and then have our own midnight feast, complete with dressing gowns, beds to lounge on, canapes shared food and strange booze! Stick with us on this one, its going to very very fun and a little weird...